Credit card companies are looking at the probable scenario of a 20% default rate so they are screwing everybody as much as they can before they default... one day late on a $10,000 balance and you get nicked for $300. I came to feel a few years back that the Credit thingy is little more than extortion. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10sun2.html?ref=opinion EDITORIAL The Credit Card Squeeze SIGN IN TO E-MAIL PRINT SHARE Published: May 9, 2009 At a time when everyone is talking about troubled banks, Congress can provide relief to millions of their increasingly alarmed customers. Many credit card holders are complaining about unexpected increases in fees or interest rates that double or triple for no reason. Related Times Topics: Credit Crisis â The Essentials | Federal Reserve System The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that at least 10 million cardholders have seen their interest rates skyrocket in the last six months through no fault of their own. The center has also found that instead of changing their behavior in anticipation of tough new Federal Reserve rules that will take effect in July of next year, most big banks continue to engage in practices that provoked the public outcry and the Fedâs response in the first place. Five of eight top credit card issuers in the country have added new fees on transactions like cash advances or for monthly maintenance. One major card company began charging a late fee of 3 percent on unpaid balances, which means that on a $5,000 balance, the cost of being just a day or so late jumped from $39 to $150. Fortunately, however, Congress is moving to turn much of the Fedâs reform package into law. The House has already passed its version by a wide margin, giving Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, the support she has been seeking for years for the Credit Cardholdersâ Bill of Rights. Christopher Dodd, a Democrat now facing a tough re-election fight in Connecticut, is trying to steer a somewhat tougher version of Ms. Maloneyâs bill through the Senate. Both bills require adequate advance notice of rate increases or changes in terms. Both make it far harder for students to get credit cards and for banks to increase rates on existing balances. Both end the practice of charging interest on balances already paid. The House bill would give banks a year to deal with these new rules; the Senate would give them nine months. That is already too long for many customers. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke argues that banks need the extra year to adjust. Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, says the Fedâs leisurely timetable is âunconscionable.â He should make this same point with his Senate colleagues in order to make the new law go into effect much sooner. From the looks of it, the banks are ratcheting up fees and interest before the Fedâs rules kick in and it is too late. This makes an earlier deadline imperative.
The best way to deal with abusive CC operators is this... Borrow $100K+ and tell 'em to say bye bye to "their" money. Then, just don't borrow any more. Ever! That will teach these crooks a hard lesson. Foolish American public has been taught to be slaves to their "credit score" for life. What a con job. Another example of the power of TV/advertising. Slaves to shopping, debt, waste, tv & taxes!
I did that... lesser amount though. I got the rate jacking treatment and called them and they talked to me like I just wasn't a good person and I better rectify that. So I defaulted and played the rest of the chips wherever they landed... three years and haven't paid a red cent. What do they think I am, some cowering chicken fearful of their authority or some accountant pussy that likes reading the statements, or I give a flying fck what some prying asshole can find out... no... not now, not ever... no apologies for being the way I am... I burned the ships baby, nowhere to go but towards profitable trading... best decision I ever made... half the hours and five times the pay of the best job I ever had... If I want a credit rating I'll go buy one...
1. credit used to be free (just pay interest)...untill the crooks figured out how to milk the sheeple for $billions more. 2. radio used to be free.... now you pay for "satellite'' radio. 3. tv used to be free...now you pay for "cable" tv. 4. Roads used to be free...now there are "toll" roads. 5 taxes used to be *much less*... now you pay a ton and it keeps rising. I see a trend here. It's time to travel your own road!
Not everyone is a rich trader on ET. Many folks have found that the gap between their income and what it costs to live has needed to be filled with credit card debt. So while these folks are not "forced" to use credit cards in the sense of having been compelled at the threat of punishment, it is no less the case that many see no other source of funds to cover the shortfall in meeting daily needs, especially when extraordinary demands, eg medical bills, an expensive automobile repair, etc. expense arises. Yes, it is true. These folks could and in many cases should or should have cut back. But most likely feel or felt that better times were just around the corner and they would catch up then. This is America, afterall. Who can blame them for their optimism? It is suprising to me the number of folks on ET who feel compassion not for their fellow citizens, but rather for the banks that engineered legalized loan sharking. Let us not forget yjat most of these debts are accrued under very favorable terms. It is only after the individual has amassed a sum of debt that cannot readily be paid down or off quickly does the bank unilaterally change the terms and conditions of the debtor-creditor agreement. In those cases, the citizen has indeed been forced to accept an onerous burden that bares little or no resemblence to the commitment to which he or she initially agreed. U-6, the broad and more accurate measure of unemployment has reached 15.6%. Many responsible folks are now suffering and find themselves unable any longer to meet these obligations. Obligations that, in the supposed wisdom of the banks have been made even more impossible to service through the use of punitive rates and fees. Think about that number - nearly 16 out of every 100 workers (not Americans in general, but workers - folks who want and are willing to work full-time) are now unemployed or under employed (working part-time jobs because no full-time position exists for them). Many of these folks now find themselves barely able (if able at all) to buy food and pay a monthly rent or mortgage. Can we really fault them for choosing a roof and a meal for their families over a credit card payment? Interestingly, I just saw an editorial in Barron's this weekend where the author noted that Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, argued that compassion and a desire to build value for one's fellow creatures was the moral underpinning of capitalism, and not unfettered greed. The banks and credit card companies are now paying, and will continue to pay for the predatory nature of their business practices whereby greed rather than a desire to provide a valuable, fair, and benficial service to theri customers guided and continues to guide their practices. We ought not to confuse government regulations meant at curbing or preventing harmful behavior as "communism." Afterall, right after noting that we are endowed by "Nature and Nature's God" with certain inalienable rights, Jefferson notes that to secure these rights, we form governments. That is, our rights are not at all secure when left to defend them on our own. We need to come together politically in order to create the conditions underwhich we may enjoy those rights. These banks have unduly violated the rights of certain of our fellow citizens, and we ought to insist that Our government do what is necessary to correct those wrongs, and protect all of us from suffering the same violations in the future.
While I have sympathy for those who borrowed, fully intending to pay back what the banks had given, and now find themselves unable to do so, I would never condone such fraud as you here suggest. While the banks and credit card companies have engaged in unfair business practices, I do believe in the old adage - "Two wrongs do not make a right." Banks and credit card companies have a right to lend and to expect to get paid back at a reasonable profit. I advocate debt relief for debtors who have reached irrevocable insolvency, I do not advocate fraud.
Well, it's like this. I tell my kids don't be a chump and be robbin people and tipping the till at work, if you want some free money, piece of cake, and never even go to jail, get a couple lines of credit and walk away. On the flip side, safe in the knowledge they don't have to rob a bank if they need some money, none of them have taken that route.
But when you rob a bank it doesn't go on your credit report for 7 years eliminating the possibility of doing the credit card theft again.
I would've agreed with your statement years ago. What I've seen in the last decade however is this *constant* push by stores, banks & others to get people to buy, buy, buy, using ''tricks" like zero interest, etc just to get people hooked on and spending/debt cycle that never ends or worse ends in bankruptcy because these predators messed up peoples minds of what they could afford. Yes, people were not "forced" to borrow, spend. But they were "convinced" with millions of commercials, ads, billboards, etc. that it's the thing to do. I say fuck the banks/lenders with their predatory tricks. Maybe the law should BAN advertising of credit cards like they do with cigarrettes!? Both are bad. One kills and the other bankrupts those who can't pay. What's in YOUR wallet???